Court Ruling on Protests Curbs Malls in California

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that privately owned shopping malls cannot stop protesters from demonstrating there to urge a boycott of one of the tenants.

CAROLYN MARSHALL

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that privately owned shopping malls cannot stop protesters from demonstrating there to urge a boycott of one of the tenants.

In a 4-to-3 decision, the court said a San Diego mall violated California law protecting free speech when its owners barred protesters from distributing leaflets in front of one of the mall’s stores, asking shoppers not to give the store their business.

“A shopping mall is a public forum in which persons may reasonably exercise their right to free speech,” Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote in the majority opinion.

Justice Moreno said shopping malls were entitled to enact and enforce “reasonable regulations of the time, place and manner of such free expression,” to avoid a disruption of business.

“But they may not prohibit certain types of speech based upon its content,” he wrote, like speech urging a boycott of stores.

The case stemmed from an October 1998 protest at the Fashion Valley Mall, an upscale shopping center in San Diego, by members of the Graphic Communications International Union, representing pressroom employees at The San Diego Union-Tribune.

With contract negotiations at a standstill, the union was trying to bring pressure on The Union-Tribune by distributing leaflets urging a boycott of Robinsons-May, a store that advertised in the paper. The mall’s owners barred the protesters from the property, saying they did not have a permit from the mall and were therefore trespassing. The union appealed to the National Labor Relations Board.

After the labor board sided with the union, according to court documents, the mall petitioned for a review by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Last year, that court referred the case back to the state to resolve.

The decision Monday upheld a 1979 ruling by the State Supreme Court that found shopping malls to be public forums where free-speech rights were protected by California law. Writing for the dissenters Monday, Justice Ming W. Chin called the earlier decision “ill conceived.” Justice Chin noted that in most states, there were no free-speech rights on private property.

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